CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Language has an important role in our life because its function is to

communicate in our life. It helps us to communicate and to gain information about

something that people need. English is one of the most important foreign languages.

In learning foreign language, English learners deal with language skill and

components. In order to be able to master English, there are many components that

should be learnt. One of the components is pronunciation. It is demanded to spell out

the unit of meaning consistently. Therefore, it is important to teach pronunciation.

According to (Harmer, 1998) for all those people who learn English, being made

aware of pronunciation issues will give them benefit not only to their own production

but also to their own understanding of spoken English.

In addition, pronunciation is important to be mastered by the students in

learning English. Pronunciation mastery can help the students have good speaking

performance. Without having good pronunciation, it is hard for the listeners to

understand the meaning or the words pronounced by the speakers. Wrong

pronunciation will cause misunderstanding in the process of communication.

As stated in Curriculum 2013, teachers must act as a model that provides an

example of how to communicate in English, provide and structure polite

communication activities in English, then provide consistent and ongoing support so

that these polite communication habits shape the character of students. Basically, in

teaching students communicate in foreign language understandably, the teachers

should be creative that can make the class enjoyable and interesting. So the students

are motivated and excited to study. The process of teaching-learning using songs can

become a very stimulating experience because songs can provide an appropriate

atmosphere for both the teacher and the students. In addition, songs have the power to

create an interesting and fun activities that everyone will enjoy. There is no denial

that songs have become an integral part of people’s language experience.

However, pronunciation may not be easy for some students in Indonesia,

especially students at SMPN 8 Palu. So, students will face many problems in

pronunciation. There are problems in pronunciation which comes from the inside and

outside of learners. The pronunciation problems that come from the inside of learners

are having less motivation to learn pronunciation, being nervous in trying to

pronounce the words well, and having limited prior knowledge related on the

pronunciation such as vowels, consonant, intonation, stress and others. While the

pronunciation problem which comes from the outside of learners is incondusive

environment which influence the learners to practice in pronunciation, limited

learning media to be used to support pronunciation. Moreover, it is also hard for

learner to have good pronunciation if they are not instructed by using appropriate

teaching technique.
 All in all, In order to overcome the problems above, it is important to use media

that is effective to improve students pronunciation. Because of that reasons, the

researcher would like to propose an alternative media that is “English song”. It would

help the teacher convey the material and make students easier mastering

pronunciation. In relation with the reasons stated above, the researcher proposes a

title of this research proposal IMPROVING PRONUNCIATION OF GRADE

VIII STUDENTS AT SMPN 8 PALU THROUGH ENGLISH SONG .

1.2 Problem Statement

At the background, the researcher found the students of SMPN 8 Palu still get

some difficulty in pronunciation. For that reason, the researcher intends to apply a

media English song to help students improve their pronunciation. The researcher

formulated the research question as follows :

“Does using English song affect pronunciation ability of grade eight students at

SMPN 8 Palu?”

1.3 Objective of the Research

Bassed on the research problem statement, the objective of this research is to

find out whether the English song improve the students pronunciation. In other

words, the researcher through this study will experiment if English song can improve

students pronunciation at SMPN 8 Palu.

1.4 Significance of the Research

 The researcher hopes the results of this research may give beneficial

contribution to the English teachers, students and future researchers in order to

improve students pronunciation. For the English teachers, researcher expects this

research may serve helpful result media that can be apply in the classroom in order to

improve students pronunciation. For the students, researcher expects this research

may support students to interested in learning pronunciation, help them to solve their

problems and also can improve their pronunciation. and for the future researchers,

researcher expects this research can be one of the source reference that provide

beneficial information for them who wants to conduct similar further research.

1.5 Scope of the Research

This research is conducted at SMP Negeri 8 Palu by using English song as

alternative media to improve students pronunciation. The scope of this research is

limited to the effectiveness of using English song as a media in enhancing the

students ability in pronouncing English sounds especially voiced plosive consonants

[b, d, g].

1.6 Operational Definition of Key Terms

The researcher uses some definition of terms in this research. First, improve is

to make something better than before or develop or increase in mental capacity by

education experience. Second, pronunciation is the way in which a language is

spoken. It refers to the production of sounds that someone uses to make meaning. It is

two folds process; the recognition of sound and practice. Third, song is a  musical
composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done

at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound a

nd silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetition

and variation of sections.